Editor’s Note: Check out “Dr. Sanjay Gupta Report: Animal Pharma” on CNN on Sunday, May 18th at 8pm (ET/PT/PT).
The transplant story has always been a altruism. After all, organs cannot be sold or purchased. They can only donate as a gift of life.
This story began in 1954 when Dr. Joseph Murray undertook the world’s first successful organ transplant at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston between his fellow twin brothers Ronald and Richard Herrick. Richard was released from the US Coast Guard after being diagnosed with end-stage kidney disease, and his same twin brother, Ronald, was a happy donor. They didn’t work for sure, but the transplant gave Richard another eight years of life.
When Ronald passed away in 2010, Dr. Murray recalled him in a statement published in the American Transplant magazine, saying, “We must never forget that he not only saved the life of his brother Richard, but also paved the way for thousands of transplant recipients around the world.”
This same spirit is pushing the burgeoning field of xenografts, the practice of using animal organs for human transplantation.
Over the past two years I have spoken with surgeons, genetic engineers and patients. The patient has given me hope to use genetically modified pig donors to end the organ shortage crisis. In the US alone, there are over 100,000 people waiting for an organ at any time. Most of them require kidneys. Every day, the 17 people on that list die and just wait.
“This paradigm where someone has to die to live is a broken paradigm. It doesn’t work,” said Dr. Robert Montgomery, director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute. As both a transplant surgeon and a heart transplant recipient, he knows how to make waiting times painful. That’s why he is relentlessly pushing through new sources of organs.
“We need a sustainable and renewable organ source from something other than human, as fewer than 1% of people who die each year die in a way that can even be considered organ donors,” Dr. Montgomery told me.
In many ways, the idea of using pigs is not too far away. After all, we have been using pig heart valves since the 1970s to replace human valves. The drugs heparin and insulin were originally derived from pigs. Pig organs are a pretty good match for us as they are similar in size to humans. And our long history of breeding them and the ability to become large in just under four months will make them a reliable, stable, and rapid source of organs.
More recent developments in CRISPR and genetic engineering have truly accelerated the field of xenografting. Scientists can modify pig DNA to allow their organs to be more compatible with human transplants and control rejection, growth and possible viruses.
But like Herrick Brothers, all this intelligent science requires a pioneering patient who, despite the unknown, tries to take a chance and raise his hand.
Tim Andrews, 66, was on dialysis for two years. He suffered from end-stage kidney disease and it was very unlikely that he would receive a transplant due to his rare blood type. Doctors could have found a match at just 9% within the next five years. It was nearly 50% chance that he would be completely dropped from the list in the same period due to illness or death.
Dialysis was worn so much on Tim that he resigned to the idea that he might literally die in a dialysis chair.
For people who have not been on dialysis, it can be difficult to understand how tough it is, both mentally and physically. But think about it like this. Our kidneys are constantly operating and filter blood 24/7. The dialysis machine tries to do all that work, but compresses it every time, 3-4 days a week. Tim’s body was stressed and he suffered a heart attack six months after he began dialysis.
When he learned that the hospital’s Massachusetts General Hospital had performed its first experimental pig kidney xenograft, he said he had to give doctor Dr. Leonard Riera a chance.
He knew there was a great deal of uncertainty about the outcome of the transplant, but Tim moved forward. When I visited Tim and his wife, Karen, at my home in Concord, New Hampshire, he told me, “It may shorten your life, but you’re going to do something for humanity. And I, that’s all.
At the time, 53-year-old Towana Rooney was the only person in the world who could understand what Tim was thinking. Twenty-five years ago, Towana had donated one of her kidneys to her mother, but two years later she developed pre-ecchiosis during her pregnancy, causing her to suffer damage to the remaining kidneys. Like Tim, she rarely found a match right away in her case due to her high antibodies. She had been on strict dialysis for eight years before undergoing a transplant at NYU Langone in November 2024. Dr. Montgomery was her transplant surgeon. Her life has been transformed, and when I saw this vibrant woman talking about her experiences on stage, I was amazed at how healthy she was. Then Dr. Montgomery said to me, “She wants to start a revolution.”
In April this year, Towana had to remove her kidneys after developing an infection that was unrelated to the organ that needed to lower her immunosuppressive regimen. At the time, she lived with genetically modified pig organs for 130 days, the longest recorded period ever.
In a statement, Towana said: “I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to participate in this incredible study. For the first time since 2016, I spent time with friends and family without planning dialysis treatments.
These are still early days, so there are ups and downs, but in science, like life, you learn from failure as much as success. Each step has been built on lessons learned from previous patient pioneers, such as David Bennett and Lawrence Faucette. They both received pig hearts and lived for another six to eight weeks. Rick Slayman and Lisa Pisano received their pig kidneys in 2024, and both lived around two months after the procedure. In each case, their stories taught scientists valuable and transformative lessons about the field of xenotransplantation.
This spring I had the opportunity to visit with Brittany Rydel, daughter of Lisa Pisano. She told me, “My mother was always caring for others, and one of the first things she said to me was, “Even if this doesn’t work for me, I can work for someone else.” And I know, I might need a kidney someday.
The baton of altruism and hope was once again conveyed.
Often, it is scientists and researchers who are recognized, and for good reason. After all, xenograft stories are possible for Nobel Prize-winning discoveries such as transplantation, gene editing, cloning, IVF, immunology and more. As Dr. Montgomery told me, “We certainly stand on the shoulders of the giant.”
But the real giants that advance this field are patients who bravely step into the unknown for the benefit of all of us.